Seattle's New Waterfront Takes Me To Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision

The photo you are seeing here I saw on Facebook today. The best look I have seen, so far, of the new Seattle Waterfront.

According to the Facebook post, which accompanied the photo, the curving mass of concrete is a new walkway leading to and from Pike Place Market. I think that is the Seattle Aquarium on the right, which would make this new Pike Place walkway towards the north end of the Pike Place Market.

Ten years ago the above scene would have seen a double decker viaduct, which was like a wall, separating downtown from the waterfront. 

The rebuilding of the Seattle Waterfront began in the second decade of the new century. Mostly completed by the end of that decade. The project was complicated, and costly, involved the removal of that aforementioned viaduct, digging a new transit tunnel under downtown Seattle, and multiple new constructions along the waterfront.

Changing the subject, slightly, to something seeing this caused me to wonder. As in, what is the current state of Fort Worth's bizarre Trinity River Vision? A pseudo public works project the public never voted on, propaganda-ized as a vitally needed economic development scheme and flood control project, where there had been no flooding for well over half a century.

The Trinity River Vision's main fixation was on creating an imaginary island, called Panther Island, so named for reasons that are head shakingly embarrassing.  This imaginary island was to be created by diverting the Trinity River into a cement lined ditch.

Three freeway overpass type bridges were built, years ago now, over dry land, anticipating that one day that cement lined ditch would be dug under them, with water added, creating that imaginary island.

It is now over two and a half decades since this pathetic project began. One hears or reads little about the Trinity River Vision anymore.

The troubling Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats on the polluted Trinity River no longer happen. The partying aspects of the Trinity River Vision seemed to abate once Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., was removed from the executive directing job he was totally unqualified for.

Was there ever any sort of investigation into the obviously doomed to fail, Wakeboard Park, which J.D. Granger helped promote, which was one of many costly mistakes made by what eventually became America's Biggest Boondoggle?

Anyway, seeing that photo of the new Seattle waterfront had me freshly wondering how it is one town can be so dynamic, whilst another town can be so mired in being a woeful dud.....

Attempting To See Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision

A couple days ago I was asked if I'd heard anything of late about Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision, also known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District, or, by many, as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

I told the person asking that I'd heard nothing about The Boondoggle, of late.

And then, yesterday, that which you see above, showed up on Facebook. A blurb about the agency which oversees America's Biggest Boondoggle.

No real information was included. Just that a new board member had been appointed to something called the "Panther Island oversight group".

Don't know what this oversight group might be overseeing, what with there being, after a couple decades, still no faux island, or much of anything to see of this supposed vision, that long ago, around the start of this century, was touted as being a vitally needed flood control and economic scheme.

Supposedly vitally needed for flood control where no floods had happened for over half a century, due to flood control levees already in place.

So, vitally needed that the public was never asked to approve of this project via any sort of funding bond issue.

To try and secure federal funds, the local congresswoman, Kay Granger's son, J.D. Granger, was appointed, at a high salary, to oversee the Trinity River Vision, hoping this would motivate Kay to help get federal funding.

That never happened. Eventually Kay was no longer the congresswoman in the Boondoggle's area, and so her son's employment was terminated.

During the course of J.D. Granger's inept executing of the Boondoggle's Vision, he initated nonsensical things which had nothing to do with any sort of sane development. Things like Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Parties on the polluted Trinity River. And a soon to fail, due to getting flooded, wakeboard park, also on the polluted Trinity River.

J.D. Granger oversaw the construction of three supposedly signature bridges, taking an absurd seven years to build, over day land. Three simple freeway overpass type bridges. All these years later, still waiting for a cement-lined ditch to be dug under the bridges, with Trinity River water diverted into the bridges, creating the imaginary island.

An imaginary island which any sane city would be embarrassed to call an island. 

Fort Worth has a long history of these type embarrassments. For decades a multi-block area of Fort Worth's downtown was called Sundance Square, with signage pointing to it. With there being no actual square there, this confused many of Fort Worth's few tourist visitors. Eventually a couple parking lots were turned into a sort of square type thing, and labeled "Sundance Square Plaza".

When I lived in Fort Worth these type things puzzled me. There was so much to be puzzled by.

Like when, also in downtown Fort Worth, a totally lame little 'public market' was opened, called, if I remember right, "Sante Fe Public Market". It was touted to be modeled after other town's public markets, like Pike Place, in Seattle, and public markets in Europe.

It was also touted as being the first public market in Fort Worth.

Touted as such when, within walking distance, there was a historical marker marking the location of a still existing art deco style building, which had been a Fort Worth public market.

This type misinformation came to me via Fort Worth's ultra lame newspaper of record, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. A newspaper which apparently did not know that just a few miles to the east, in a town called Dallas, there was a HUGE public farmers market. Every time I had visitors from the Pacific Northwest, when I lived in DFW, I'd take them to the DFW highlights, including the Dallas Farmers Market.

And every time my PNW visitors to DFW would remark that the Dallas Farmers Market reminded them of Pike Place, only flatter.

Whilst living in the DFW zone I was routinely perplexed by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and that entity's tendency towards weird cheerleading type propaganda about this, that and the other thing in Fort Worth, including, for a while, a weird habit of touting some ordinary Fort Worth thing somehow making towns, far and wide, green with envy.

That which I took to calling Fort Worth's Green with Envy Syndrome, seemed to disappear after I made a webpage making mock of such with multiple instances of the syndrome.

Back to the Trinity River Vision, that also has long perplexed me. How is it that which seems to be a relatively simple project has so little so show for it after so many years?

During the 25 years since Fort Worth's embarrassing Boondoggle began, New York City totally rebuilt the area where the Twin Towers stood.

The town between Fort Worth and Dallas, Arlington, has built a new football stadium for the Dallas Cowboys, and a new ballpark next door to the football stadium, for the Texas Rangers.

Long after Fort Worth's Boondoggle began, and completed for years, Seattle dug a new transit tunnel under downtown, then tore down an elevated highway on the Seattle waterfront, then re-built the waterfront, which has now become Seattle's new HOT tourist attraction.

In the years Fort Worth struggled to build three little bridges over dry land, Tacoma turned America's biggest EPA superfund site into the multi-billion buck Point Ruston development. That is at the north end of Tacoma's waterfront. At the south end, Tacoma built the Thea Foss Waterway

So, there you go, my current thinking regarding Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision....

Windy Lucy Park Walk With J.D. Granger's Sudden Trinity River Vision Departure

This next to last Saturday of the 2022 version of April is a blustery one in North Texas, a windy state not rendered obvious by the serene, peaceful Lucy Park Wichita River view you see above.

Gusts of wind had me holding onto my hat multiple times this morning as I hiked the Lucy Park backwoods. 

Even though there were gusts approaching a slow hurricane level of blowing, there were dozens of disc golfers throwing their discs. 

I have never disc golfed, but it seems to me doing so with extreme wind blowing would not be much fun.

Two news stories caught my eye this morning. The first was from Favorite Nephew Jason, sending me a news article purporting to tell the tale of his Aunt Clancy falling into an outhouse pit whilst attempting to retrieve her phone. Rescue specialists had to somehow lift Clancy out of that which she fell in to. And immediately hosed her down prior to more extensive sanitation measures.

The other news story first came to me via text message, then I saw it on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, then a text message from Elsie Hotpepper pointing to an article about the subject in Fort Worth Report.

The news?

J.D. Granger is no longer working for the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.  Granger had been removed from his position as Executive Director of the Trinity River Vision Authority a couple years ago, but continued to be paid well over $200K a year, even though he no longer had a designated position.

The story being told is that Granger resigned and is starting up a new business, named after himself. Granger claims he feels he can leave the Trinity River Vision now because his work there is done, after decades of boondoggling, the claim is the project is now on track to be a vision someone might one day see.

Many have asked many times what it is, exactly, that J.D. Granger has done during all these years of boondoggling. 

That question was first asked a long long time ago when a Trinity River Vision insider got fed up with what they were seeing at TRVA headquarters. Money spent on all sorts of perks. Perks from I-phones to I-pads, to junkets, to cars, to spending an inordinate amount of time, each day, discussing where to go to lunch today on the public's dime. 

The person who was telling us about things they just thought were not appropriate referred to him or herself as Deep Moat.

I remember one item which appalled Deep Moat was the well stocked liquor supply at TRVA headquarters.

But what really set Deep Moat's nerves on edge was the extramarital office affair J.D. Granger was having with one of his subordinates, who he later married after divorcing the mother of his children.

Anyway, do you think we will ever know what exactly J.D. Granger did all these years whilst being so well paid to do what would seem to be basically nothing, what with so little to show for all the years of boondoggling?

Oh, yes, there are those three little bridges built over dry land, waiting for a cement lined ditch to be dug under them. And there were those Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River. And let's not forget J.D. Granger touting the Cowtown Wakepark, bringing the coveted sport of wakeboarding to Fort Worth, which soon became one of J.D. Granger's early failures, a failure fairly easy to predict for anyone with even a slight modicum of common sense.

Many are feeling a bit cynical about the reason for J.D. Granger's departure. Was he given the option of resigning to avoid the embarrassment of being fired? Had the TRWD board realized there was no longer any reason to keep employing J.D. Granger so as to motivate his mother to secure federal funding, which the woman totally failed at, including voting no on the federal infrastructure bill which finally saw Fort Worth get the money to build that ditch under those bridges.

Methinks there is more to this story. Perhaps we will be hearing from Deep Moat...

Have A Mighty Fine 4th Of July Grilling Filet Of Alligator

Yesterday, as in Saturday, the day before today, Sunday, the 4th of July, I was in Walmart collecting the vittles needed for my annual 4th of July Grilling.

I was in the seafood section looking for salmon, when I saw that which you see above, which I had my phone take a picture of for documentation purposes.

Filet of Alligator.

I have no idea how one cooks Alligator.

I need to consult the Southern Belle, Elsie Hotpepper, with whom I consult when I am dumbfounded trying to figure out some Southern cuisine confusion.

Elsie is a gourmet level chef specializing in the complicated cuisine of the South.

From the Hotpepper I learned how to make perfect grits, hush puppies and fried green tomatoes.

You reading this in Washington, and other locations not in the South, does your Walmart seafood section stock Alligator?

Speaking of Alligator, of late that particular reptile has been in the local news due to there being way above the norm number of Gator sightings in Fort Worth's Lake Worth.

Lake Worth is an impoundment of the Trinity River, a few miles upstream from the downtown Fort Worth location of the Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River.

I have seen no coverage, this river floating season, of Rockin' the River. Has this been cancelled again, like last year, due to COVID?

Or is this increase in the Alligator population the new reason not to be Rockin' the River?

Star-Telegram Wonders How Long Until Panther Island Becomes An Island

 

This morning a new article showed up in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about America's Biggest Boondoggle. By the end of this long article we learn the article was written by a new reporter, recently moved to Fort Worth, Emily Brindley, who the Star-Telegram is characterizing as an "investigative reporter".

This should be interesting. The Star-Telegram has not had one of those before, regarding anything to do with the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, which has become, after limping along for years, America's Biggest Boondoggle.

The article is titled As another bridge opens, how long until Fort Worth’s Panther Island becomes an island?

Just the article's title raises red flags. Such as, even the article's title admits that that which has been called an island, is not an island. 

Let's go through this article and comment as we go along. The first paragraph...

Late this weekend, Fort Worth officials plan to open the new North Main Street bridge that leads to the eventual Panther Island — marking another step forward in a project that has been more than a decade in the making and is still years from completion.

First off, this project has been limping along this entire century. Just the building of the three simple little bridges is taking almost a decade. Is it not even remotely concerning that a project which originally was touted as being a vitally needed flood control/economic development scheme is still years from completion?

Clearly, not vitally needed.

The second paragraph...

But local officials say the many moving pieces of the project are beginning to align. With a new presidential administration, an impending federal infrastructure bill and the return of appropriations earmarks, officials say that federal funding could soon flow into the project and kick off the next big phase of construction.

Have we not heard this moving parts beginning to align propaganda before? There is actual vitally needed infrastructure work in America, including much work needed in Fort Worth, such as addressing actual, real, flooding issues in Fort Worth. Why would, or should the rest of America help pay for Fort Worth's inept Boondoggle after it has been so badly mismanaged for so many years?

Why should, or would, federal money flood into Fort Worth for this project when the voters of Fort Worth have never voted to approve this public works project? Let alone be asked to support a bond issue to pay for it, like towns wearing their Big City pants do.

The next two paragraphs are a doozy, followed by one of the photos from the Star-Telegram article illustrating the imaginary beautiful bridges...

Tarrant County administrator G.K. Maenius pointed to the bridges as evidence that “we’re finally seeing some results” — and he said he’s pleased with the aesthetics of those results, too.

“I don’t know if anyone realized just how beautiful those bridges are going to be,” he said. “I’m not a bridge guy, but even to me, they look pretty darn good.”

Yeah, that is one super beautiful bridge. And look at those signature V-Piers, which J.D. Granger insisted on, rather than the actual cool looking design of the West 7th Street Bridge over the Trinity River. Clearly this guy who admits he is not a bridge guy, has not seen any of the world's actual impressive signature type bridges. Maybe heading west and seeing the Golden Gate Bridge might be too much bother for education purposes, but this Tarrant County administrator could simply drive a short distance east, to Dallas, and see the two actual signature bridges over the Trinity River, which actually do look pretty darn good.

You reading this in non-Fort Worth America, you good with your tax dollars helping Fort Worth build this?  Moving on...

The creation of an island necessitates the digging of a new channel north of downtown Fort Worth, which would connect the Clear and West forks of the Trinity River and then connect the ends of a U-shaped bend in the Trinity River. The new channel would effectively create two islands, together called Panther Island.

This is the first I have read there will be two imaginary islands. Both called Panther Island. If there are two, shouldn't they be known as the Panther Islands? Like in my old home zone in Washington, where the dozen of islands in the San Juan Strait are known as the San Juan Islands. But those islands in Washington are real islands, not cut off from the mainland by a cement lined ditch.

Moving on...

And for access over the eventual channel, the Texas Department of Construction in 2014 began building the three bridges, which currently span dry land. At the time, officials said the bridges would be completed by 2018.

Texas Department of Construction? I have not heard of this Department before. Maybe the Star-Telegram's new investigative reporter can do some actual investigating to find out why it has taken so long to build three simple little bridges over dry land? With construction to be completed three years ago.

Moving on a couple paragraphs...

Officially, the $1.17 billion project is broken into two pieces: the flood control portion, which is known as the Central City project and primarily involves digging the 1.5-mile channel, and the economic development portion, which is known as the Panther Island project and primarily involves the development of the industrial land in the area.

Officially? When did this breaking the project into pieces thing officially happen? When America's Biggest Boondoggle began around the start of this century it was called Trinity Uptown. A few years later this became the Trinity River Vision. I saw Central City on signage in Gateway Park, years ago, far east from the area which does not need new flood control, because it has not flooded since well over a half century ago, due to flood prevention measures already in place. When did the economic development part of this scheme become known as the Panther Island Project? The Boondoggle has been sold as a flood control/economic development scheme from the start. Slapping the Panther Island label on this that and the other thing came around about the time J.D. Granger and the Trinity River Vision began hosting Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River, labeling this as happening at Panther Island Pavilion. Where there is no island or pavilion, by any sane person's definition of either island or pavilion.

Skipping ahead a few exhausting paragraphs to the following doozy...

Officials have long said that it was cheaper and easier to build the bridges over dry land, and that the federal government would pay for the channel construction because it’s a flood control project.

Uh, if it was easier to build these three simple little bridges over dry land, why is the project years behind being completed? And, as has been pointed out many many times, there was no option other than to build the bridges over dry land. How could there be any other option? I mean, this entire project is rife with wanton stupidity, but it is hard to believe the stupidity could be so dumb as to dig a ditch, line it with cement, fill it with water. And then build bridges over it.

There has never been any other option than to build these bridges over dry land. How many times must this be repeated before the Star-Telegram ceases repeating this "cheaper and easier" nonsense?

The next paragraphs repeat the propaganda about securing federal funds, Kay Granger's failed role in doing so, the Trump administration refusing to help because the project has never done a comprehensive cost-benefit study and thus is not policy compliant, which then leads to hoping "the Biden administration will look more favorably on the Fort Worth project."

This article makes no mention of the fact Kay Granger's unqualified son, J.D., was hired as the Trinity River Vision's Executive Director, at a salary which has now gone over $200K, so as to motivate J.D.'s mother to secure those federal funds to secure J.D. a good paying job.

Why would the Biden administration look favorably at the Fort Worth project with all its baggage? There still has been no cost benefit study. The project is mired in mismanagement and project delays. The project wastes money on flood control where there has been no flooding for over half a century. Why would the Biden administration waste federal money on this Fort Worth boondoggle while the town ignores actual real flooding issues in other parts of the town?

Moving on deeper into this article...

Mark Mazzanti, a consultant on the flood control portion of the project and a 35-year veteran of the Army Corps of Engineers, said the federal government’s finite funding allocation means difficult decisions about which projects to fund. But he also said that the Panther Island/Central City project has “a number of strengths,” including support from locals, from Congress and from the Corps itself.

A number of strengths? If the locals support this boondoggle why have they never been allowed to vote on it? Like voting yes on a bond issue to pay for it. The amount of money we are talking about here is not that big for most big cities and their public works projects. What makes Fort Worth different? If this is such a good idea, such a brilliant scheme, such a well thought out and important project, why would those who want to make this happen not go to the voters and ask for their help by passing a bond issue to pay for the thing?

And then this...

Federal funding would mean that workers could begin on the new channel — first with final planning and then actual digging and construction.

Yes, federal funds would mean the planning for the ditch could be finalized with actual digging beginning. The same could have happened if years ago voters voted to support a bond issue to finance this vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which apparently really is not even remotely vitally needed, due to the backwards way Fort Worth has gone about actualizing the ill begotten project.

And then the following two paragraphs...

Even after federal funding comes through, it would likely be another eight to 10 years until the channel was actually completed, according to Buhman, the soon-to-be general manager of the water district.

That means that the channel would be finished — and Panther Island would actually become a full island — by 2030 at the earliest.

So, eight to 10 years after these three bridges are finally completely built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, the channel, actually ditch, will actually be completed. Yeah, this sounds like a really well thought out project that the federal government should jump right on and help to the max. Oh my, Panther Island might actually be a full imaginary island by 2030, after calling it Panther Island for two decades.

We are almost at the end of this article, two more paragraphs...

In the meantime, Buhman said, officials are focused on getting the land as ready as it can be for the channel. The water district is working on environmental cleanup of the Panther Island properties, he said, while the city moves and sets up utilities.

“We are shovel-ready for that channel and we’re still doing that prep work but I would say it is well on its way,” Buhman said. “And we are at the place that we are ready for that federal investment and for that construction.”

Really? What is the manifestation of those officials getting the land ready for the channel? Are they clearing the land of weeds and debris? What? How is the water district working on the environmental cleanup? Many have long thought that if this ever gets to the point where a lot of dirt is moving it will uncover a contamination level requiring an EPA Superfund cleanup. Shovel-ready and doing prep work? Again, what prep work does one do preparing to dig a ditch? It's well underway? As in how? Ready for that federal investment which likely will never come?

So, one can not help but wonder, if this new Star-Telegram 'investigative journalist" is the real thing.

Will she be doing some investigating to let us know, after all these years, why it has taken so long to build three simple little bridges? Will she look into what it is that J.D. Granger actually does to warrant being paid so much money? How about looking into the real reason J.D. Granger was hired? 

Linda Lou Takes Us To Mount Vernon's Skagit Riverwalk

Even with the title above mentioning the Skagit Riverwalk, longtime lookers at this blog may be thinking the photo they see here is a photo of one of America's Biggest Boondoggle's Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats at Fort Worth's imaginary pavilion on the town's imaginary island in the town's polluted river.

However, there is a clue or two that that is not the Trinity River you see here, as there is nothing unnatural floating in it, and the color is a pleasant shade of green, not brackish brown.

Yesterday the Skagit Valley's favorite Linda Lou called and during the call I asked if Linda Lou had any good photos of Mount Vernon's Skagit Riverwalk.

And then, this morning, from Linda Lou's phone, photos of Mount Vernon's Skagit Riverwalk showed up.

Around the turn of the century Fort Worth began an imaginary flood control economic development scheme, at the time called Trinity Uptown. Eventually that name turned into Trinity River Vision. Eventually becoming the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision. More commonly known as America's Biggest Boondoggle, after two decades of limping along with little to show for the effort but one completed little bridge built over dry land, which took 7 years to build.

Fort Worth did not fund this pseudo public works project in the normal way of having the public vote to approve funding the not vitally needed flood control project. Not needed due to the fact the area in question has not flooded for well over half a century. To secure funding a local congresswoman's son was made Executive Director of the project, to motivate his mother to secure federal funding.

So far mother's efforts to get the more prosperous parts of America to pay for Fort Worth's ineptly implemented imaginary flood control project has not born federal fruit.

Meanwhile, about 10 years after Fort Worth's imaginary flood control scheme got underway, the little town from which I moved near the end of the last century, Mount Vernon, began to implement an actual vitally needed flood control project. A flood control project with the actual side benefit of being an economic development scheme, creating a waterfront riverwalk and making downtown Mount Vernon economically more viable due to greatly reduced flood insurance premiums. 

We shall continue with the rest of the story whilst looking at Linda Lou's photos of Mount Vernon's Skagit Riverwalk.

I am guessing Miss Mary was the photographer for the above photo, with that being Linda Lou walking away from us. We are looking north here, at the south end of the Riverwalk. That bridge you see is crossing the Skagit River, connecting downtown Mount Vernon to West Mount Vernon. That bridge was built many years ago, over actual moving water, and built in less than four years.

No local congresswoman's son was involved in determining what type piers the bridge was built on.

I forgot to mention, that photo at the top, which some might have mistaken for Rockin' the River, is instead an event taking place on the Skagit Riverwalk Plaza. I assume this is Tulip Festival related. As you can see tulips play a big role on the Skagit Riverwalk. In the above photo you can see the Tulip Tower in the distance. We will get a better look at the Tulip Tower below.

Above we see the Skagit Riverwalk as it passes under the Skagit River Bridge. We are looking south here. The Skagit is a much bigger river than the Trinity River. The river is a bit wide as it passes through Mount Vernon, only a few miles from reaching the mouth of the river in Skagit Bay.

I forgot to mention the reason the Skagit Riverwalk is an actual real flood control project is because the Skagit has been a regular menace to downtown Mount Vernon ever since the town began. Downtown Mount Vernon is sort of like New Orleans, as in the downtown goes below river level when the Skagit goes into flood mode.

12 funding sources were used to pay for the Skagit Riverwalk project, the final phase of which was completed in 2018. Prior to this upgraded flood protection, when the Skagit flooded it took between 1,500 and 2,000 volunteers to fill and stack 150,00 sandbags to hold back the river.

In the early 1990s, during the worst flood I remember seeing, I was among the volunteers. I went to downtown Mount Vernon after midnight, after seeing on the news how bad the expected crest was going to be, and seeing so many people helping, including Navy volunteers from the Whidbey Air Force Base. The sandbag stacking was complete by about the time the sun arrived. 

A few hours later, around 11 in the morning, a huge crowd had gathered, at a safe elevation, to see if the river would top the sandbag wall. Just as the river began to flood over the wall something happened. No one new what it was, but suddenly the river level dropped. Downtown Mount Vernon was spared, because further downriver a dike had failed, flooding Fir Island, taking pressure off the flooding river.

Two weeks later it happened again.

Hence the effort began to find a solution to a real flood control problem, a solution which was many years in the making and eventually resulted in a Dutch designed flood control system which takes a crew of about 20 around 12 hours to stack aluminum logs to make a flood control wall.

This resulted in FEMA granting Mount Vernon's request to be removed from the 100 year floodplain, resulting in this quote from Mount Vernon's mayor at the time, “The flood protection project brings a 40 percent reduction in flood insurance premiums, and removes 223 buildings from the regulatory floodplain, increasing community safety and improving economic vitality of the downtown business district,” Mount Vernon Mayor Jill Boudreau told the crowd.

Another group of tulips on the Skagit Riverwalk Plaza. Linda Lou gives us no clue at to the why of the guys standing in front of the tulips. But it sure let's us see how big they are.

But, not nearly as tall as the Tulip Tower.

Due to the completion of Mount Vernon's Skagit Riverwalk flood control project, the hoped for economic development has followed. Such as a 1906 era building being remodeled with the ground floors providing commercial space with the upstairs being living space. The owner is putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into the project and says this would not be happening without the new floodwall protection.

Meanwhile in Fort Worth, Texas...

She Pricelessly Cancelled J.D. Granger From Rockin' The Polluted Trinity River

I saw that which you above and below last night on Facebook. Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and Betsy Price's best friend's eldest son, J.D. Granger getting into a Twitter twitfest over the canceling of Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube floating beer parties in the frequently e.coli infested Trinity River.

Betsy Price tweeted thanking J.D., and his nefarious gang of river pirates, for making the right call and canceling this weekend's concert and river float scheduled to take place at one of the world's best imaginary music venues, located, partly, on the landlocked imaginary archipelago known as Panther Island.

Well, J.D. was not gonna sit still for this bit of subterfuge, so he posted a lengthy retort Tweet to set the record straight as to who it was who DID cancel the river floating.

Oh my. The above has so many absurdities.

J.D.'s crew painted a grid system on 1.3 acres of riverfront "lawn"?

With safe distancing between all the spots?

Every single attendee was to get a temperature check before being allowed to get wet with the river's multi pathogens?

Capacity was capped at 25%? What is the number of floaters considered full capacity, I can not help but wonder?

Health safety monitors were staffed throughout the site? On land and in the sea, I mean, in the polluted river water, to make sure masks were worn, with no groups larger than 10 allowed to congregate, with all distancing requirements met? Violators to be asked to leave?  How many of these health safety monitors were hired, I can not help but wonder? And how do you find someone with that skill willing to get wet doing their job in a polluted river?

Cleaning attendants were disinfecting on the hour? Wiping down touched surfaces throughout the day? Like what? Wiping down the concrete enclosures around the multi-outhouses? And the outhouses themselves?

The final third of J.D's Tweet details all the measures he thinks Betsy Price went to to shut down his operation, even after she twice rode her bike to the location and eye witnessed the massive effort underway to make the Trinity River and its surrounding area safe from COVID-19, with the final blow from Betsy coming Friday afternoon in the form of a threat, threatening that if J.D. proceeded with Rockin' the River the city would have no choice but to shut it down.

This all has generated quite the kerfuffle on Facebook. One of the more amusing comments opined that this must be real rough for J.D. to get Rockin' the River taken from him, that this was all he and his new wife, Shanna Cate Granger, had to do after their demotion about a year ago, when J.D. was removed from his post as Executive Director of the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision, and given a new job, working directly for the Tarrant Region Water District overseeing the imaginary flood control part of what has become one of America's Dumbest Boondoggles ever.

I think we have pointed out previously that J.D. Granger's new job of being in charge of the flood control part of the Boondoggle is a bit ironic in that the area in question has not flooded for well over half a century, due to levees which have kept the area flood-free ever since they were installed. It is thought that J.D. was given this "job" because it would not be possible for him to muck it up, like what happened with what was originally known as the Trinity River Vision.

Those new to this Boondoggle, the Trinity River Vision is an ineptly implemented, ill-conceived pseudo public works project the public did not approve of via the voting method which is the norm for such things. The Trinity River Vision was touted as being, way back when first touted, near the start of this century, as a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.

Vitally needed flood control in an area which does not flood. The economic development scheme part of the cloudy vision has always been even more sketchy than the imaginary flood control.

This project was touted as being vitally needed, and yet has limped along in slow motion for most of this century. The project has never been fully funded. Relying on hoping to secure federal funding.

And so the son of a local congresswoman gave up his job being a deputy prosecutor to become an executive director directing a project for which he had zero qualifications.

The purpose of this brilliant scheme of giving J.D. this job was to motivate his mother to secure those federal funds, to help pay J.D.'s over $200,000 a year salary (plus perks), plus the salary of J.D.'s wife, and to pay for all the fun fact finding junkets J.D. and his wife take their crew of river pirates on.

Oh, and also to help pay for things like building three simple little bridges over dry land. And the cement lined ditch to go under the bridges, along with canals and other infrastructure on the imaginary island which is currently an industrial wasteland.

Those three simple little bridges have been stalled in slow motion construction mode for five years. I read a comment, on the Facebook post where these Betsy/JD Tweets came from, that those pitiful bridges are no longer being referred to as the Panther Island Bridges. They are now being called, I assume by the Boondoggle's propaganda websites and printed publications, the TxDOT Signature Bridges.

Fort Worth has a weird pathology regarding signature and iconic things. And labeling some ordinary thing as such. I think this pathology comes from the fact that there is nothing in Fort Worth of the signature or iconic sort, and this creates some sort of civic inferiority complex. I have had it explained to me as such by longtime locals.

Many Fort Worthers have long had a strange obsession with Dallas, which comes across as jealously to one new to hearing it.

Dallas has multiple iconic and signature items. First off there is the Dallas skyline, known world wide due to a hit TV show in the previous century. There is Reunion Tower. A couple new, actual signature, bridges across the Trinity, have been added to the Dallas skyline this century. It was when those Dallas bridges were announced as being planned as part of the Dallas Trinity River Vision (I don't remember the actual name of the Dallas River Vision) that soon thereafter I remember being appalled at a banner headline in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH

No, I am not making this up. Really happened. Something was gonna turn landlocked, mountain-free, Fort Worth, into the Vancouver of the South.

Trinity Uptown soon morphed into Trinity River Vision, and soon was touting three "signature" bridges. However, when the cost of the Fort Worth bridges came in, the designer bridges were dropped, with what look like freeway overpasses replacing them, but hanging on to claiming them to be signature bridges. As if applying that word to something magically turns it into a signature iconic thing recognized the world over.

Mayor Betsy Price Tweets Cali Is So Yesterday While Fort Worth Is So Last Century

It has been a couple decades now I have found myself bemused and, at times, appalled by something I read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something to do with Fort Worth.

It started off with making note of the fact that over and over again in an article in the Star-Telegram the claim would be made that some dumb thing would be making other towns, far and wide, green with envy.

There were multiple iterations of what I came to call the Star-Telegram's Green with Envy Syndrome.

And then, years ago now, I guess someone figured out how dumb making such claims came across and that particular Star-Telegram propaganda ceased. Or at least I have not eye witnessed such in a long time.

Other instances of Star-Telegram propaganda, not of the Green with Envy Syndrome sort, would also seem bizarre to me.

Such as claiming what turned out to be a small, lame, soon to fail food court type thing was modeled after public markets in Europe, Seattle's Pike Place Market, and was to be the first public market in Texas.

None of which was even remotely true.

And then there was that Sunday morning, early this century, when a banner headline on the Star-Telegram front page touted "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH".

I remember reading that headline and thinking what fresh moronic nonsense is this going to turn out to be. Never imagining that the Vancouver of the South project would turn into the Trinity River Vision, eventually becoming the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.

Eventually what became America's Biggest and Dumbest Boondoggle hired Fort Worth Congresswoman Kay Granger's son, J.D., to be the Executive Director of the public works project which the public did not vote for. Son J.D. had zero qualifications to direct such a project, a fact which many believe is one of the reasons this ill-fated vision has become such a boondoggle, currently with three simple little bridges being built over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

And with those three pitiful bridges now in year six of slow motion construction, with the start of construction marked by a TNT exploding ceremony back in 2014, with a then astonishing four year project timeline. To build little bridges over dry land, a project of seemingly simple engineering compared to an actual feat of bridge engineering, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, built in less than four years over actual deep swift moving water.

Fort Worth mayor, Betsy Price, was at that TNT exploding ceremony celebrating the start of construction of those pitiful bridges.

And now, in today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram, on the front page, we see Betsy Price suggesting Tesla move to Fort Worth, tweeting to Elon Musk that "Cali is so yesterday".

Well.

If "Cali is so yesterday" I would suggest "Fort Worth is so last century". With zero chance of luring Tesla to relocate.

Back a year or two ago when Fort Worth leaders embarrassed themselves by acting like they thought Fort Worth had a chance to lure Amazon to Fort Worth for its HQ2 I recollect iterating all the reasons I could think of why Fort Worth is unable to lure a corporation to move from the parts of our country I refer to as Modern America.

You know, those towns in America where the streets have sidewalks, the parks have modern restrooms, and zero outhouses, where there is well designed public mass transit, where voting is easy via mail-in ballots, where urban planning is sophisticated, thoughtful and intelligently implemented.

What does a corporate re-location investigating team think when they check out a town with antiquated type public transit? Or when they drive something like Fort Worth's Tarrant Parkway and find roads which were not upgraded when a mall and multiple other retail developments where allowed, with Tarrant Parkway's western terminus being a tacky little roundabout intersecting with a beat up, un-upgraded entry to the Highway 287 freeway, which appalls and disgusts me every time I see it.

What does a corporate re-location investigating team think when they visit Fort Worth's downtown and find the park celebrating Fort Worth's heritage is a boarded up eyesore? What do they think when they learn Heritage Park at the downtown's north end has been in this sad state for over a decade?

What does a corporate re-location investigating team think when they come upon the mess on the landscape which has become America's Biggest & Dumbest Boondoggle? How do you explain those three bridges stuck partly built. How do you explain that ridiculous homage to an aluminum trash can at the center of the un-finished roundabout which is part of the Boondoggle's bridge mess?

What does a corporate re-location investigating team think when they see Molly the Trolley?

What does a corporate re-location investigating team think when they learn the town allows Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the polluted Trinity River, which is one of the few projects actually actualized by the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision Boondoggle.

If Fort Worth really wants to be serious about attracting a major corporation to move to Fort Worth the town should send a task force to towns which do attract corporations. Visit a couple towns in Arizona, like Tempe and Chandler, both way smaller than Fort Worth, both with multiple corporate headquarters or corporate presences, such as the sprawling INTEL complex in Chandler.

You won't find any outhouses in Chandler or Tempe's parks. Or streets without sidewalks. You will find multiple public swimming pools, huge pool complexes, the likes of which one can not find in Fort Worth.

Or visit Seattle and find out why it is Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, Costco, Boeing and others are located in the area.

Or just stay in Texas and visit Austin, which is a modern American town. I do not know what the voting situations is in Austin though, if they have joined modern America with the mail-in ballot method, or not...

Sketchy Decade Long Look At Two Cities: Fort Worth & Seattle

As 2019 draws to a close let's amuse ourselves with a look at a couple examples from the past day or two of items I read in west coast online news sources, usually the Seattle Times, about something to do with Seattle, that I would not expect to read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, about something to do with Fort Worth.

These looks at these type items have been among our most popular blog postings, for years.

And part of what renders these blog postings amusing is hearing feedback from Fort Worth locals expressing umbrage.

The Fort Worth locals expressing umbrage thing is always amusing. It always seems the same as someone getting all cranky because of what they see in a mirror.

Anyway.

The first article which struck me as something you would not see in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something regarding Fort Worth is a Seattle Times article which has 10 sketches showing how Seattle has changed over the last decade.

Sketches showing things like the Amazon campus, the new Seattle waterfront with the now gone Alaskan Way Viaduct, the new tunnel under downtown Seattle, the hugely altered city skyline, a new floating bridge, trolley lines, link light rail lines and other stuff.

Meanwhile during the last decade in Fort Worth.

What could the Star-Telegram possibly sketch 10 instances of showing how Fort Worth has changed over the last decade?

Well, the Fort Worth skyline has not changed. Heritage Park remains a boarded up eyesore. The Trinity River Vision is now a nationally known Boondoggle, with three simple little bridges stuck over dry land. I guess sketching the ruins of three unfinished bridges would qualify as something which happened over the previous decade.

Oh, Rockin' the Polluted Trinity River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats, that is something sketch worthy.

Did the pitiful solo Molly the Trolley public transit vehicle come to be the last decade? I don't remember when that embarrassment started up.

How about those Trinity River Cruises which the Trinity River Vision Boondogglers were hyping earlier in the year. Did that ever come to fruition?

I suppose the Star-Telegram could sketch the remains of the Cowtown Wakepark, what with it being something that came and died the past decade.

I just remembered an actual sketch worthy thing which happened in Fort Worth this decade. In the goofiest bond issue ballot I have ever seen voters passed three goofy ballot measures which somehow approved of the building of a new arena.

Dickies Arena is now open and has received nothing but positive reviews and has already hosted multiple events, and is likely going to be a big hit at the upcoming Stock Show.

If only Fort Worth's ongoing inept urban planning had managed to make an exception to its usual ineptness and had addressed the traffic problems which a town with urban planning would have anticipated with the building of a new venue.

Now, let's move on to the second article in the Seattle Times about something in the Seattle zone which one would never expect to read in the Star-Telegram regarding a similar thing happening in Fort Worth.

Seattle has been one of America's boom towns for most of this century, with the booming getting more so this past decade, hence the article saying Seattle's massive surge of new construction is causing a permitting backlog.

Fort Worth has no similar problem. Pretty much anyone wanting to build anything in Fort Worth can get the project approved. Often encouraged with tax breaks and other incentives. Even for an obvious con job, like a sporting goods store finagling to get breaks to build what they conned the locals into thinking would be the biggest tourist attraction in Texas.

The town manifests little evidence of what is known as urban planning.

A visit to where I first lived when I moved to Texas, to the hamlet of Haslet, in far north Fort Worth, is instructive. Back then, miles of open land was between my abode and development. The skyline of downtown Fort Worth was a distant little blip on the horizon.

And now, 20 years later, all that open land has been filled in, mostly with houses. And retail, such as malls, and Costco. With the roads basically the same as they were when I first drove on them. HUGE development allowed without the infrastructure upgraded. Just drive west on North Tarrant Parkway til you get to Highway 287 and you will see all you need to see to understand how ineptly Fort Worth's urban planning is.

Add to that the fact that drainage was not adequately upgraded. Which has greatly exacerbated flooding, causing deadly flash flooding downstream from the badly developed development.

Recently the Fort Worth city council embarrassed itself by disbanding the town's Ethics Commission. On Facebook I saw more than one person sarcastically comment along the line that doing so fits right in with the city's delusion of thinking that it is somehow going to attract multiple corporations to re-locate to Fort Worth in the coming decade.

I often wonder, have most of these Fort Worth locals, who apparently are okay with what is known as the Fort Worth Way, not been to other parts of America? Even other parts of Texas?

Very perplexing. And it is almost not only a happy new year, but a happy new decade, as well...

Walk By Wichita Falls Trash Can Art Thinking About Fort Worth's Waste

Many a time when I walk the Wichita Falls Circle Trail I will see trash cans which will remind me of Fort Worth's Homage to an Aluminum Trash Can.

That Fort Worth Trash Can cost $1 million and sits at the center of an un-finished eyesore of a roundabout which sits near the un-finished eyesore of a couple unfinished bridges which have been stuck in slow motion construction mode for years, over dry land.

As I walked past the trash can you see here, after stopping to take a photo of it, I pondering blogging about the absurdity of the Trinity River Vision Panther Island Boondoggle thinking federal money should be funneled to Fort Worth to pay for their ill-considered, ineptly engineered pseudo public works project.

As in how can it look good to those handling the federal purse strings to have this project begging for money when it is not all that hard to find out what the Boondogglers have already wasted money on?

Such as failed Wakeboard Parks. The aforementioned Homage to an Aluminum Trash Can, river cruises, music festivals, junkets, high salaries. The list goes on and on.

And I am getting to be so senile I forget I have already opined about the absurdity of thinking federal funds will arrive when so much money has already been wasted, with little to show for the wasting.

Well, there is that Trash Can work of art, those bridge ruins, and J.D. Granger's expanded waist line providing some evidence of where the money has gone.

So, I searched the blog to see when last I mentioned the Homage to an Aluminum Trash Can to find that senility concern arise when I saw it was just last month I posted Anonymous Wondering About Fort Worth Boondoggle Spending Million Bucks On Trash Can Homage.

And in that post I copied the content of an email which elaborated on that which my senile self was repeating above. That email is worth repeating, and so I will do so...

We all thought what you had to say about the Panther Island project having trouble getting federal funding was right on the mark. Particularly on the mark was your saying "Yes, it does not take much common sense to see that it probably does not look good to those handling the federal purse strings that at the same time a town is begging for federal funds the town is holding Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tubes Floats, and starting up a bizarre river boat cruise line to sail the polluted river. Among additional nonsense. Done any wakeboarding at Cowtown Wakepark lately?"

Sometimes it seems your blog is the only honest reporting about the Panther Island project and all its problems. In the past you've asked how much money was spent on that Wakepark failure. Spending money on that type thing can not possibly look good to those in Washington who are responsible for doling out federal funds. 

Another thing you could have mentioned which seems wasteful for a project asking for outside help is the million dollars spent on what some say looks like a giant cheese grater, and you have referred to as an homage to an aluminum trash can. Why would a million dollars be spent on such a thing for a project not adequately funded?

_______________

This blog post has already gone long, and I have not gotten around to mentioning the main thing I wanted to talk about, that being a blog post from a few days ago which has gone sort of viral, and to which an interesting Anonymous comment was made, which I have not published, due to the person making the Anonymous comment suggesting I not do so, but that I might want to blog about it, removing that which might not be appropriate to publish. I am assuming the Anonymous person made the Anonymous comment rather than send an email due to that wanting to be Anonymous thing.

It's almost way too much for a borderline senile person, such as myself, to process...

Anonymous Wondering About Fort Worth Boondoggle Spending Million Bucks On Trash Can Homage

Yesterday's blog post about the Star-Telegram Being So Done With Foot-Dragging Games On Panther Island generated an apropos email on the subject from someone we will call Anonymous, even though we know the email address of Anonymous, with that email address providing a good clue as to who Anonymous is.

The Anonymous email...

We all thought what you had to say about the Panther Island project having trouble getting federal funding was right on the mark. Particularly on the mark was your saying "Yes, it does not take much common sense to see that it probably does not look good to those handling the federal purse strings that at the same time a town is begging for federal funds the town is holding Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tubes Floats, and starting up a bizarre river boat cruise line to sail the polluted river. Among additional nonsense. Done any wakeboarding at Cowtown Wakepark lately?"

Sometimes it seems your blog is the only honest reporting about the Panther Island project and all its problems. In the past you've asked how much money was spent on that Wakepark failure. Spending money on that type thing can not possibly look good to those in Washington who are responsible for doling out federal funds. 

Another thing you could have mentioned which seems wasteful for a project asking for outside help is the million dollars spent on what some say looks like a giant cheese grater, and you have referred to as an homage to an aluminum trash can. Why would a million dollars be spent on such a thing for a project not adequately funded?

___________________

That is a photo of the aforementioned giant cheese grater which looks like an homage to an aluminum trash can you see above. That photo was taken earlier this year, or maybe it was last year. I can not help but wonder if the tacky roundabout surrounding the homage to an aluminum trash can is still a litter, weed covered, un-landscaped mess.

Another element we neglected to remember to mention is all the money which has been wasted due to the paying of exorbitant salaries to the likes of someone like J.D. Granger and his latest wife, over a period way longer than which they would be paid if the project were completed in a normal timely fashion, such as what would happen in modern, non-corrupt, non-nepotism allowing towns in America...

Star-Telegram So Done With Foot-Dragging Games On Panther Island

Monday of the second week of the 2019 version of September starts off with an, uh, interesting editorial in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, titled...

We’re so done with the bickering, foot-dragging and blame games on Panther Island

Okay, so after limping along for most of this century the Star-Telegram is now done with the slow motion Trinity River Vision which has become America's Dumbest Boondoggle.

Read the editorial in its entirety, via clicking the link, above, to get the entire Star-Telegram foot-dragging about foot-dragging.

We'll look at some choice bits gleaned from this editorial---

The first paragraph...

All summer, flaws in the Panther Island project have been exposed — muddled missions, a confusing structure and flawed communications.

Uh, it has been way way way longer than just this summer that flaws in America's Dumbest Boondoggle have been being exposed. Let's just take a look at this look at the flaws, posted way back in October of 2018, America's Biggest Boondoggle Unravels As Trinity River Vision Scandals Grow.

And then this from today's editorial...

But the real problem is that no one has any answers about why the project can’t win federal funding or what to do about it.

Win federal funding? As if getting money from the more prosperous parts of America is some sort of game show prize.

No one has answers as to why America's Dumbest Boondoggle does not qualify for federal funding?

Did we not learn that one of the problems is that there has never been the required by the federal government "cost-benefit analysis"? And that it was finagling by J.D Granger and his mother to attempt to get by without the needed cost-benefit analysis which resulted in its non-existence? Apparently the finagling was done because J.D.'s mother knew the ill-conceived, ineptly implemented pseudo public works project could not survive a legitimate analysis of its imaginary flood control aspect. Let alone the crony-inspired economic development aspect of the Trinity River Vision scheme.

You can read for yourself the Army Corps of Engineer's actual flood control recommendations in their un-corrupted form via the Army Corps of Engineers recommendations in Army Corps Of Engineer's Document Contradicts Controversial Riveron Review.

And then there is this gem from today's Star-Telegram editorial...

We’re 18 years into study and work on this problem, and taxpayers are no safer from a catastrophic flood. But hey, we can marvel at half-built bridges over dry land.

Taxpayers are no safer from a catastrophic flood? There has been no flooding in the zone in question for well over a half a century due to levees built way back then which have done their intended job ever since. Meanwhile, there are actual areas of Fort Worth, and Tarrant County, which do have actual, not imaginary, flood control issues, which are not being mitigated, not being fixed.

And then this follow up gem...

Jim Oliver, the water district’s general manager, insisted that these kinds of multi-year projects have ups and downs. And he noted that the board had already agreed to the tax extension.

Really? Can Jim Oliver give us some examples of other such projects which have had similar ups and downs. We'll wait, take your time.

How does this guy keep this job which pays him over $300K a year, plus perks and benefits? I've been told he has a Napoleon Complex, exhibiting classic Little Man Syndrome. I have never understood why the way he bullied TRWD board member, Mary Kelleher, was not enough to get him fired. Maybe if Fort Worth had an actual newspaper of record, reporting on the bully abuse, Oliver would have been long ago terminated, and possibly a qualified replacement found who actually knows how to get a project completed.

The final two paragraphs from today's editorial followed by one final comment...

One of them will be proved right. And the reality is, none of this would be necessary if any federal funding could be pried loose to keep the project moving.

That could be key to the funding question. The federal government is interested primarily in flood control, and the “optics issue” of the board’s involvement in planning festivals and condo construction may have given reluctant bureaucrats a reason to overlook the project.

Yes, it does not take much common sense to see that it probably does not look good to those handling the federal purse strings that at the same time a town is begging for federal funds the town is holding Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats, and starting up a bizarre river boat cruise line to sail the polluted river. Among additional nonsense. Done any wakeboarding at Cowtown Wakepark lately?

And another thing that common sense clearly indicates is the fact that if this were an actual, legitimate, dire needed flood control project, needed to protect the people from a catastrophic flood, then why does the town not pay for it itself, like town's wearing their big city pants do? Relative to what other towns spend on legit public works projects a billion bucks is not all that much, you know, particularly if spending that money is protecting your people from an imaginary catastrophic flood.

If this were a legitimate flood control project, along with a sensible economic development scheme, the project should be able to be sold to the public, who would then vote to approve a bond issue raising the funds to pay for the project. Going begging the more prosperous parts of America to pay for such is just embarrassing.

Again, if this were a legit, actually needed flood control project, a billion bucks is not that HUGE a price tag, all things considered. I know of other towns in America where the voters repeatedly approve projects costing way more than one billion bucks. I think the most recent transit bond passed in Los Angeles was for something like $94 billion. The Seattle zone's most recent transit bond was for over $50 billion. Other towns in America support similar public works projects, with the locals being the primary funding source, without relying on federal welfare.

And those more prosperous towns in America get things done. During the same time frame Fort Worth has been limping along with its blind Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, Los Angeles has built multiple miles of rail transit, built a new $4 billion football stadium, is getting ready to host another Olympics. In the current decade Seattle has also built miles of rail transit, along with a $4 billion transit tunnel under downtown, which also removed the Alaskan Way Viaduct and is rebuilding the Seattle Waterfront, and a new $4 billion floating bridge across Lake Washington.

Meanwhile, during that same time frame Fort Worth has managed to be unable to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to a ridiculous imaginary island.

And now, after foot dragging for most of this century, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram is sort of "so done" with Panther Island...

Tacoma Trio Generates Eastern Washington Pacific Northwest Power

This morning incoming email from the Tacoma Trio asked in the subject line "Still in the PNW, right?"

Via the text in the email and the photos I soon understood the premise of the question was asking if Eastern Washington was considered to be part of the Pacific Northwest.

Years ago I found myself associated with a Tacoma business called the Pacific Northwest Shop. During that association I had reason to seek an accurate definition of what was considered to be the Pacific Northwest. I do not remember if Google existed back then, but I just Googled to quickly find....

The Pacific Northwest is the region of the western United States located adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. ... Much of the Pacific Northwest consists of rural forested land; however, there are several large population centers which include Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, Vancouver, British Columbia, and Portland, Oregon.

Wikipedia has a Pacific Northwest article in which the first explanatory paragraph is even more detailed than the above one...

The Pacific Northwest (PNW), sometimes referred to as Cascadia, is a geographic region in western North America bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the west and (loosely) by the Rocky Mountains on the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) and the U.S. states of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Broader conceptions reach north into Southeast Alaska and Yukon, south into northern California, and east to the Continental Divide to include Western Montana and parts of Wyoming. Narrower conceptions may be limited to the coastal areas west of the Cascade and Coast mountains. The variety of definitions can be attributed to partially overlapping commonalities of the region's history, culture, geography, society, and other factors.

So, I guess the above answers the is Eastern Washington part of the PNW question.

The text in the email left no doubt as to where in the Eastern Washington part of the PNW the Tacoma Trio had taken their parental units, with the following two illuminating sentences...

So I don’t know if you can figure it out from the pics but we were at Lincoln Rock State Park in East Wenatchee this weekend. So much fun.

The rest of the email's first paragraph detailed the vehicular malfunction woes which were part of the Eastern Washington adventure. And then additional text explained what we are seeing in the photos, such as the photo at the top is Theo and Ruby riding from their campground to the Pybus Market. I have no idea what the Pybus Market is.

And then we see Ruby and Theo learning to row a boat. The twins have a history of successfully rowing boats. The water they are floating on would be what is known as the Columbia River, perhaps the reservoir behind Rocky Reach Dam. The Columbia is a real river which flows clear, clean water, not a glorified ditch flowing polluted sludge. There are no Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats on the Columbia River.

The text explaining the above photo, "View from the campsite. Ok, cabin. But it’s still camping!" That would be Theo on the left, with big brother, David, on the right.

We'll let the text in the email explain the above photo, "We toured the Rocky Reach Dam then went to the Entiat Fish Hatchery and the nice lady there who let us feed the fish told us about a cool hike called Silver Falls. We went but didn’t love it."

That does look like a rather lame waterfall. The Tacoma Trio is used to seeing BIG waterfalls, like Snoqualmie Falls. Methinks they would be ultra disappointed if they ever saw the waterfall in Wichita Falls. Analytical David would quickly opine that it was ridiculous, particularly when he figured out it was manmade and flowed out of a cemetery.

The email text explained that above Theo, David and Ruby were making electricity at the dam.

Rocky Reach Dam has a HUGE educational type museum sort of attraction one gets to experience when touring the dam. I have been told that post 9/11 one goes through some sort of security to get to the powerhouse museum part of the dam. The fish ladder at Rocky Reach is the best of that type thing I have ever seen.

And once again, photos and memories of the Pacific Northwest are making me homesick.

This month David, Theo and Ruby's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Jack get to return to the PNW for the first time in years, well, two.

I believe school starts for the Tacoma Trio this week, so I don't know when next we will get taken on a new PNW adventure. Perhaps when Aunt Jackie and Uncle Jack come to town. Maybe a pedal car tour out of Ruston Point on the new pedestrian bridge to Point Defiance...

Thousands Of New Imaginary Downtown Fort Worth Residents By 2022

It seems like only yesterday, or the day before, we asked if you had Read Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Boondoggle Bridge Design Flaws Investigation?  in which mention was made of the fact that Fort Worth suffers from not having a real newspaper, and that the town's Fort Worth Star-Telegram acts more like the town's Chamber of Commerce mouthpiece than a normal newspaper of the practicing investigative journalism sort.

And then this morning, on the front page of the Star-Telegram, once again, a big Star-Telegram propaganda headline touting These projects will bring thousands of new residents to downtown Fort Worth by 2022,  leading to yet one more of those Chamber of Commerce type pieces which have long been so annoyingly ridiculous to anyone with an iota of common sense and a memory.

Those not familiar with Fort Worth, in the photo above, that is the stunning skyline of downtown Fort Worth, as seen from the west, looking across that wide ditch which is known as the Trinity River. On the left, in the photo, crossing over the ditch, that is Fort Worth's one and only actual signature bridge, the West 7th Street Bridge, which many locals thought should have been the design of the three simple little bridges stuck in slow motion construction for years, trying to cross dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Let's take a tour through this latest article of Star-Telegram propaganda and ferret out some of the ridiculousness.

But, before we do that let's make mention of the fact that that downtown, where projects will supposedly bring in thousands of new residents, currently has zero grocery stores, zero department stores, not many restaurants, and few of the other amenities one might expect to see in the downtown of a town with a population over 800,000.

So, let's start with the first sentence of this latest Star-Telegram propaganda...

Tim and Donna Young are proud to be called “Mr. and Mrs. Downtown Fort Worth.”

Okay, that is just weird. Apparently this couple met in 2012, live in the downtown Texas & Pacific Lofts, can be seen walking around town, and for these obvious reasons their friends have given them this "Mr. and Mrs. Downtown Fort Worth" nickname.

And...

Tim Young said he feels “like I live in Paris sometimes” because of their urban-centric lifestyle.

Oh yes, one can see how living in downtown Fort Worth would feel like living in Paris. what with downtown Paris being known for having no grocery stores or places to shop, and few restaurants or sidewalk bistros. And then there are those Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the Seine River. And that boarded up eyesore park at the heart of downtown Paris celebrating the storied history of Paris.

Yes, one can easily see how one could feel like one is living in Paris when living in downtown Fort Worth.

Let's leave the Youngs and their Parisian dream now and move on with the rest of this article...

As the city looks ahead to the next five to 10 years, much energy will be spent encouraging growth in the city’s core. Nearly a dozen new buildings are in the works downtown, according Downtown Fort Worth Inc. – some that will reshape the skyline as soon as 2022, when as many as 3,000 new residents could live downtown.

Wow! After all these years of the Fort Worth skyline seeming to be permanently stagnant, by 2022 the skyline will be reshaped! So excited to see that. And maybe as many as 3,000 new residents could maybe live downtown.

Nearly a dozen new buildings are in the works? What does that mean? Someone has thought of maybe building? The only other big city newspaper I pay much attention to seems to make mention of new buildings coming to downtown only after the building of such is a done deal, as in being built.. Not just a pipe dream. Like last week I read Google is building a new tower north of the downtown Seattle Amazon campus, along with residential towers to house the incoming new Google workers.

Then there is a paragraph about three new buildings which have received approval from the Fort Worth Downtown Design Board. No clue as to how close these three buildings are to actually being built, but the three paragraphs which follow the mention of these three possible new buildings are amusing...

The new buildings may not be as noticeable as the Omni Hotel Fort Worth or the City Center Towers, but they will be the first new residential high-rise structures built downtown in decades.

Ann Zadeh, the councilwoman representing downtown, said her hope is that downtown’s skyline will fill in with buildings that stand out.

“When I drive by other cities with prominent skylines, I think it’s a great visual,” she said. “That’s what I want for downtown.”

First new residential structures in downtown in decades? Is that not sort of a telling fact? And downtown's councilwoman hopes the Fort Worth skyline will fill in with stand out buildings, because when she drives by other town's skylines she longs for a similar visual for downtown Fort Worth?

I have long wondered what long time natives of Fort Worth, who have not recently visited towns in modern America, think when they see another big city for the first time in a long time. Like if they drive 30 miles east and see the world-wide recognizable skyline of Dallas, and see those hundreds of miles of Dallas light rail. Along with downtown shopping of the Neiman-Marcus sort.

Or see the downtown of a town like Seattle, with multiple vertical malls, multiple downtown grocery stores, multiple downtown department stores, transit tunnels under downtown, an ever changing skyline, and dozens of downtown highrises under construction, not just being talked about possibly being built.

And then there is this doozy of a pair of paragraphs...

City planners are confident in the residential growth, but commercial investment is less clear. The city’s long-term economic development plan relies heavily on attracting new corporate headquarters to Fort Worth with an aggressive goal of landing seven Fortune 1000 companies in the next five years.

As many as 80 companies are in talks with the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce about moving or expanding in Fort Worth, said Chris Strayer, senior vice president of business attraction. About 40% of those would need office space, and downtown has been a target.

Really? As many as 80 companies are in talks about moving to Fort Worth? An aggressive goal of landing seven Fortune 1000 companies in the next five years?

All the time I have been in Texas, Fort Worth has been trying to lure companies to Fort Worth, using all sorts of incentives. Never successfully. How about sending a task force to towns which do successfully lure the companies Fort Worth fails to lure to find out why? Like why would a company choose, I don't know, Plano, over Fort Worth? Or Irving? Or Austin? Or Tempe, Arizona? Or any other town in America which do land a new company coming to town.

Fort Worth even managed to fail at having hometown Radio Shack succeed at locating a new corporate headquarters in downtown Fort Worth. This resulted in a typical Fort Worth boondoggle disaster, with the Radio Shack new headquarters being taken over by Tarrant County College, after the debacle managed to rob downtown Fort Worth of acres of free parking and the world's shortest subway, which gave easy access to downtown Fort Worth.

This delusional pie in the sky propaganda article just goes on and on. Mentioning the need for more commercial space, you know for offices, you know, for all those companies coming to town where all those new people living in downtown Fort Worth will work.

Why, they are even giving tax incentives to the owners of the dozens of downtown parking lots if they will vertically build.

Any downtown with dozens of parking lots taking up acres of downtown building space is not a healthy downtown.

And then there is mention made of something called Neighbor's House Grocery, opening in October on the ground floor of a downtown building. Imagine that, yet one more attempt at a downtown Fort Worth grocery store.

Maybe some thought should be given to fixing Heritage Park. That really can not be a good selling point for any corporation looking to come to town, a boarded up eyesore celebrating the town's heritage, located at a key location across from the county courthouse.

Maybe some thought should be given to how dumb it looks for a downtown of a big city to have something called Molly the Trolley as part of the town's limited, primitive, downtown transit system.

And also, why in this article about the soon to be booming downtown Fort Worth is no mention made of that HUGE development immediately north of downtown, you know, that development known as the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision?

A troubled vision which has been trying to see progress for most of this century, which touts an imaginary island with multiple residential towers, retail establishments, and canals to travel between attractions.

What do those corporations think about that BIG mess due north of downtown when they visit to consider moving to town? Those simple little bridges stuck in slow motion construction can not be a good selling point of the town's viability. Let alone the absurd fact that those simple bridges are being built in slow motion over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.

Will this supposedly newly booming downtown Fort Worth be the final death knell of the Trinity River Vision and its long ill-fated economic development scheme and imaginary flood control?

Time will likely tell...